Nearly five years after her highly publicized preventive double mastectomy, the former 'The Early Show' anchor reflects on why she chose to get rid of her "perfectly healthy breasts."

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Unless you live under a rock, don't read, or are color-blind, you know October is breast cancer awareness month. For a lot of people, it's the one time they give any real thought to the health of their breasts.

Not me.

I think about mine every single day: when I get in the shower, when I pull on a shirt, when I try on bathing suits. I think about them all the time because it was almost five years ago that I opted to have them removed.

When I tell people it was a choice, most stare at me, unblinking, as if I suddenly sprouted a third eye. "Why would you remove perfectly healthy breasts?" they ask incredulously. So I tell them.

When Both of Your Parents Have Breast Cancer

I am the daughter of not one but two breast cancer survivors. My mother was one of the more than 200,000 women diagnosed in the United States every year. Her cancer was caught early during a mammogram. Because of that, it was small and her prognosis was very good. Once she got past the shock, she chose a lumpectomy and radiation, and is now going on 14 years cancer-free.

My father was a different story. His cancer was caught late and it was aggressive; this was back in the seventies when people were hardly talking about breast cancer, much less those cases that occur in men. My father wasn't a very healthy man, so even though we were saddened by his diagnosis, we sort of chalked it up to just another thing he had to deal with, along with high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes. His course of treatment? A modified radical mastectomy. He died a few years after that, not of breast cancer but from the heart disease that plagues so many African-American men.

Then it was my turn.

Dealing With an Abnormal Mammogram

In 2003, I had a brand-new job that carried with it high visibility and copious amounts of stress. My mammograms, which I had been getting since my mother's diagnosis, until then had been normal. But that year something changed.

Instead of my usual clean slate, these little white flecks started showing up and I was diagnosed with atypical hyperplasia, a precursor to breast cancer. Because of my family history, I would have to have my breasts biopsied every year. Four biopsies in four years left their mark on them, since all the surgeries were in the same location. I never had large breasts and ultimately, scooping golf ball-sized portions of tissue out every year caused my breast to collapse on itself.

So did I.

I wish I could explain to you the level of despair I was experiencing during that time. I felt like I was going round and round on a terrifying carnival ride that would stop in a place I didn't want. I began to think it was not a matter of if, but when I would get breast cancer.

How to "Play Offense" Against Breast Cancer

Around that time I started talking to my breast surgeon about playing offense. I didn't want to wait until I was diagnosed, I wanted to take action. We talked about lowering my risk with tamoxifen, but ultimately I chose to have a preventive mastectomy, which, along with reconstructive surgery, would also help repair the damage to my breasts from multiple biopsies.

There was a lot going on in my life at that time. Just after I informed my employers of my decision, I was fired from that high-profile job; not related to the surgery, I'm sure, but the timing still sucked. So I said good-bye to viewers on December 22, 2006, and on January 7, 2007, — in a five-and-a half-hour procedure filmed by Oprah Winfrey's show — I said good-bye to my breasts.

The recovery was tough — not just physically but emotionally, although not in the ways you might think. I never felt like I was less of a woman without my breasts or worried what my husband would think. My main concern was my young children, who thought that I might die.

When I came home from the hospital, not only was I trying to recover, I was trying to not let on that the surgery took so much out of me. I slowly got stronger, and even let my kids help care for me, changing bandages and the like, which somehow made it all less scary. Two months later I was back in the surgical suite, having my temporary implants swapped out for the permanent ones.

Cancer-Free — and No Regrets

So here I am, nearly five years later. Do I have any regrets? Nope, not a one. Because the fact is, and what I tell people who ask, while I didn't have cancer, clearly something wasn't right in my breasts. Yes, I had genetic testing, but was negative for BRCA1 and BRCA2, two genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer. But we have to remember that those are the only two so far linked with increased breast cancer risk; there could be more, just undiscovered. I wasn't taking off two healthy breasts; it's just that they weren't cancerous — yet.

At the end of the day, I had my preventive double mastectomy because I love my life and I want to be here for as long as I could be, especially to watch my daughter grow into the gorgeous woman she is becoming and to soak up the joy my son brings.

My husband and I decided it would be better to have the "whole" of me here even if it meant a part was missing.

Is a preventive mastectomy the right choice for other women? That's a tough and ultimately personal call. But if you are in a similar situation I would say first know your family history, then surround yourself with a team of doctors who can walk you through the options. Then take your time making the decision, as it's not one to rush into. Taking control is the first step.

After two decades as a television news anchor, including four years on The Early Show, René Syler decided it was time for a change. Determined to inspire women like herself — juggling busy lives, raising children and trying to live up to impossible parenting ideals — she wrote the book Good-Enough Mother: The Perfectly Imperfect Book of Parenting and currently runs the related Web site GoodEnoughMother.com. René lives in Westchester, New York with her husband, Buff Parham, children Casey and Cole and their yellow Lab Olivia.

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